The Crow
Third story written for the Dean focused H/C meme at hoodie_time (I have one more in the works... I know, I know, this meme is eating my brain...). The promp is from an anonymous poster (*singsongs* but I know who she is, and you ain't gonna know). She asked for 'Dean has wings and after a battle one of his wings is so severely injured that he can't fly anymore and falls from the sky like a stone. Cas and Sam take care of him.'
This story is... sort of that.
The Crow
They find him in Las Cruces, New México, even though the fight had actually happened more than a hundred miles north of the place. But then again, it had happened a hundred miles from the ground as well, so...
What's even more insane is that, because of the sigils branded on his ribs, they find him only because there's a news report on TV about a strange being falling in the middle of frigging downtown.
In rush hour.
There was even footage, grainy and obviously coming from someone's cellphone, but it was clearly Dean and his black wings. After all, there weren't all that many men walking... er... flying around with a pair of shiny black wings.
'The Crow', that was what the locals had come to call him, but rumor had it that Las Cruces newest addition was a certified and guaranteed, hundred percent fallen angel. Because heavily religious place sees man with wings, what else are they gonna think?
Hunter with shit for brains will certainly not be their first guess, even if it is the one closest to the truth.
Sam ran a hand over his face and looked at Castiel. This was going to be worse than what they'd feared.
Of all the places Dean could've fallen into, he had to chose one nicknamed the City of Crosses, where the general motto was 'People helping people'. He'd become the city's new 'mascot' even before the dust he'd raised as he fell down, had settled.
Sam just hoped that Dean didn't open his mouth and made things worse when he realized with exactly what those people were mistaking him for. Dean was kind of... sensitive on the whole angel matter.
Not that he could've said anything so far. From what little Sam had managed to catch from the crappy footage, Dean was in a pretty rough shape. There was no way the docs there could help him. If they had even gotten around to helping him, because a man with feathers... Sam was sure the medical community had to be having fits of drool.
And it wasn't just the medical personnel... the number of people that the camera crews had shown, standing at the gates of the hospital, carrying signs that went all the way from 'Praise the Lord, his servant has come' to 'Take me with you, Crow!', Sam could see that this was all gonna become a 'thing'.
Like they needed more 'things' at that point.
Leave it up to Dean to stir this sort of commotion in the middle of the damn apocalypse.
Well, to be fair to Dean, he hadn't exactly chosen to fall there, or any other place. The way it had happened, it had been more like... crashing.
Which is what happens when you are a stubborn human who thinks that, just because he has a dandy set of brand new wings, he can take on two rebel angels... on his own. No back up. No planning what so ever.
Granted, those angels were planning on wiping Las Vegas off the map, claiming that it was a 'den of inequity' and that, like Sodom, it had to be eradicated.
Dean had taken personal offense.
And now he was in the hospital, apparently in a secured wing -ah, the irony- because the hospital grounds were being invaded by all kinds of religious fanatics.
Sam could only imagine just how much bigger this story was going to get when Castiel grabbed Dean from that locked room and 'beamed' them both to the bed at Bobby's, where Sam and the older man were waiting for them.
'Man with set of wings disappears from guarded room in the hospital'. Sam could already see the headlines.
So much for keeping a low profile.
The Crow landed with a thud on the hard mattress that Sam had already taken care of stripping of sheets and covering in a plastic tarp that extended all the way to the ground on both sides.
Dean's wings were... kind of huge and messy. And Bobby was around, so there was no point in pissing off the man by getting dust and feathers all over the place. Well... feathers anyway. Bobby already had plenty of dust lying around.
As soon as he had Dean settled on the bed, Castiel traded a silent look with Sam and left the room. Sam knew exactly what that sorrowful blue gaze had said. He'd done all he could, but these days, that wasn't much for the almost-powerless angel.
Worse thing about black wings, beside the fact that, in the daytime, they stand out like hookers in Sunday's mass? They can hide bloodstains like it's nobody's business.
Sam learns that when Castiel returns with a bowl of water and a pair of washcloths.
It takes Sam and Castiel four basins of warm water until the washcloths they're using to wipe the damn things, come away pink, instead of deep red.
Sam had looked before, glad to see that the docs at Las Cruces had actually done something more than stare at his brother. Dean had a neat row of thirty stitches running from his hip to his waist on the right side and a set of five butterflied cuts, one on top of the other, from bellow his left nipple to his belly button. There were plenty of other minor scrapes and bruises, not to mention a few feathers bent out of shape, but Sam was sure that those gashes had been the major culprits for the amount of blood he and Cas had to wash out of those wings. Not even a broken bone... perks of a bone structure modified to allow flight.
Sam also knew that, from the way the skin around the stitches and the butterfly bandages looked more white and washed out, rather than red and puffy, that had been where Castiel had invested his waning healing powers. He was grateful for that. For heavenly beings, rogue angels kept the dirtiest weapons. Infection was almost always a certainty.
Dean's wings stirred under their ministrations more than the man himself. It had been like that ever since he'd gotten them because, who ever said that the eyes are like the windows to the soul, hadn't really ever gotten a good look at a nice set of wings.
And if Dean can lower his eyelids to cover his emotions under thick lashes, there is absolutely nothing he can do about the seven feet wide feathery give-aways that he carries on his back.
'The Crow', Sam reminded himself with a chuckle, sensing that his wings were all cleaned up and shiny again, curled them around himself like the fluffy blankets that they could be, and purred into his pillow as soon as Sam and Cas stored their washcloths away.
Sam is going to tear Dean a new one for going after two rogue angels on his own. He might even go as far as pluck a couple of feathers off his brother's ass just to drive his point home. But for now, the sight of Dean resting quietly, unplagued by memories of Hell, or the weight of the looming end of world or even the occasional freak out because of the drastic changes in his life of late... it was enough to give a little peace to Sam's heart.
Didn't stop him from taking a picture with his cell phone. Because, seriously, Sam was still Dean's younger brother and there was no way he wasn't going to milk all the fun he could out of the whole 'The Crow' mishap and if Dean gave him crap back, Sam would have that picture to blackmail him with. After Dean rested. And after Sam chewed him a new one.
Cas had no idea why Sam left the room with an evil smile on his face , but it might've had something to do with the fact that Dean currently looked like less of a crow and more of a kitten curled up on his bed and slightly snoring.
The end
AN: My big thank you to jackfan2 , for her most awesome beta-work. All remaining mistakes are mine.
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